Editorial: Giving is true meaning of day

The whirlwind of the season has finally reached its crescendo, and the long journey of commercialization that this year began even before the stuffing was put away on Thanksgiving Day takes at least a temporary breather.

Today is when we take stock and reflect on the true meaning of this holiday observance. While we're at it, it wouldn't hurt for all of us to start thinking about our post-Christmas lists. Here is ours:

1. We need to remember that the "War on Christmas" is over, at least for the rest of this year. The odd thing about this war is that it keeps on being fought.

In fact, it's not really much of a war at all. It's more like a Civil War battle re-enactment: a lot of noise and smoke, but at the end of the day everybody goes home, little the worse for wear. But unlike the Civil War, there never was a "War on Christmas." And every year those who insist on it fail to realize that.

If there ever was a war on Christmas, the Christians won it a long time ago. From Santa Claus to molded plastic Nativity scenes, from Christmas trees to mistletoe, Christmas is embedded into the cultural fabric of America.

2. Nevertheless, despite appearances to the contrary, we need to remind ourselves that this is not a Christian nation. And that may be the true American miracle of the season - that the founding fathers, be they Protestants, Deists, were freethinkers and products of the Enlightenment all, who built this country on the foundation that people of every faith, or no faith at all, were welcome here and free to worship or not worship as they saw fit.

And they still are.

3. And for those of us awash in the tornado of shredded wrapping paper, and the beeps and boops of the new Xbox One or the latest smartphone, it probably wouldn't hurt to remember the true meaning of the day.

It was G.K. Chesterton who hit on the mysterious heart of the holiday when he wrote, "Christmas is built upon a beautiful and intentional paradox; that the birth of the homeless should be celebrated in every home." Now it is true that Chesterton overstated the case a bit. In the first place, Jesus, Mary and Joseph were not without a home - what they didn't have in Bethlehem were reservations. Bethlehem was a temporary stop because of a Big Government program: the Roman census, requiring everyone to shlep back to their ancestral home.

Secondly, Chesterton should not have written every home - rather Christian homes.

But the real meaning of Christmas was given full-throated voice by Pope Francis, who reminded the faithful that the lone pursuit of wealth makes us mean.

Giving is what the day is about and perhaps even what life itself is about.

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Editorial: Giving is true meaning of day

Call Christmas Day the calm after the storm.

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